Simplicity
I'm ready. Are you?
The other day my therapist said: “We Westerners have a prejudice: we equate complexity with high quality. We believe that if something is great it must be complicated and difficult; and if it’s simple, it can’t be good.”
His words really got me thinking. All of my life I’ve been striving for excellence, believing that the way forward must be difficult and complex. But what if, instead, it were simple?
The timing was perfect, because recently I’ve come to the conclusion that I want “things to be simpler.” I’ve built a career, put down roots, always making an effort in the way I believed necessary: by struggling and pushing along an arduous, convoluted path.
Whether my approach was necessary or not, today I feel I’m ready for things to flow with a bit more ease.
And here’s the interesting part: the key to it all may lie in a concept I’ve been practicing for years, one I learned from music. It’s about limitations.
Looking for simplicity? Creativity? Beauty?
Set limits.
Years ago, when I was starting to take composition seriously I decided to study with a mentor. Fernando Otero, a star on the contemporary tango scene, also came highly recommended as a teacher, so I looked him up. Of course I wanted to impress him, so I prepared by writing the most complex, dense, and long piece of music I could manage.
The day of our first lesson, I arrived at his studio, in awe and nervous. After we discussed my goals, to my surprise he gave me my first assignment: to write four measures of music. “Four measures! That’s like asking a writer to create a sentence! Insanity!”
My inner striver was shouting inside my head.
“But I’ve studied counterpoint! Jazz harmony! Formal analysis! I HAVE A MASTERS DEGREE!”
Fortunately I got ahold of myself and when I turned my attention back to the room, Otero was explaining in detail what he wanted out of the assignment, illustrating examples beautifully in black pen on a blank piece of paper: I was to execute a series of “games” in the form of micro-pieces, each one lasting four measures.
And each would have a different set of limits.
In one, I would only use 4 different notes of the scale; in another, for three instruments, the lowest-pitched would play the highest notes and the high would create a low accompaniment; in another we would limit the harmony to two specific chords.
In each piece, I was to create the most polished, wonderful “professional” music I could. And in each, of course, I would be bound by the strictest of limits.
Throughout the years I studied with him, we would come back to this technique, and I would eventually create a library of ideas or concepts to use when composing. The common denominator? Each concept is actually a set of rules - each “game” occurs within strict confines.
These miniature games act like sports tournaments: they are governed by rules within which wonderful storylines unfold, unique moments occur, and when we’re lucky, beauty is created. The concept isn’t new and is used by artists of all disciplines: limits create freedom.
Recently I participated in a guided meditation, an introduction to the Buddhist concept and practice called metta (benevolence or loving kindness).
In the meditation, you practice compassion by wishing wellness upon different people. Silently, you express a series of desires, and the one that really got me thinking was “may you live easily.” As I did it I was instructed to choose various people in my life - a friend, a neutral person, someone who bothers me…and wish each of them wellbeing.
The most challenging person? Me.
But there I was, saying to myself: “may you move easily through the world; may you live with ease.”
So maybe this is what I’ve been training for all these years: setting limitations and finding beauty in simplicity. So for me, and perhaps for you too, it’s time to apply those lessons to life itself.
May you live easily.
I usually tell you about a book I’m reading and this week is different for two reasons.
One, I’m still reading the 500+ page biography of Leonard Bernstein I told you about last time, and two, I thought I would switch it up and share a video with you.
Remember the Buddhist meditation I mentioned? Well, I found it right here on Substack.
is a former ABC New anchor who, after covering wars and manning the news desk, decided to ditch it all in search of wellness. According to his byline, he “curates nuggets from modern science + ancient wisdom to help you do life better.”He’s very down to earth, so if you are at all put off by religious solemnity, you might find him appealing. So here’s the guided meditation I mentioned above. It’s very accessible and I recommend it.
Today I´m not recommending any music… I want to hear from you. Have you listened to the 30 tangos I recommended? Do you have any favorites or suggestions?
Leave them in the comments!
As a dancer I have been simplifying my dance for the last few years. At first, during the COVID lockdown, I was working with different teachers in a different setting (Zoom). At first I thought I was just resetting my dance to refresh and relearn what I thought I knew. Now several years later I find that I am still working with a simpler vocabulary. I am concentrating on different aspects of the dance. I am more interested in expressing myself than in performing what might be considered "fancy steps." I am curious how this will manifest itself in the future.
LOVE!